So you want a website

Write your own site, with HTML, CSS, PHP, and a bewildering choice of additional web software. Or rather don’t, it’ll take you years to figure out. Instead, use the mature tools and services that’re available.

First, consider a good hosted site-building package deal

These are excellent services, that you generally pay a monthly fee for. Here are some that struck me:

Or install a CMS onto your own server space

This is what I (and many many people with vastly more experience than me) can help you with. The advantages are varied. It can work out a lot cheaper, but it’s also very flexible – you can build your site pretty much how you want, if you know what you’re doing, or have found someone who does. It’s maybe a tougher path though, which is why you should consider the kind of all-in services that I’ve listed above.

Select a theme for your CMS – which I found to be almost the key decision! It’s by looking at themes that I realised what systems I needed for my various websites. I’ve written a post on WordPress themes.

Be aware of what plugins you’ll be needing: generally CMS’s are enhanced by all kinds of useful and often essential scripts (some of which get absorbed into the next iteration of the CMS).

And of course you’ll need the time and energy and resource to navigate your way through all of the choices. Someone like me may be right to help you get going, and also help you look after the technical well being of your site as technology advances.

You do need to be well advised

Your content is facing the vast world wide web 24/7. It needs to be:

in a form that search engines can easily catalog, so that the right people can quickly find it

well laid out for ease of access

well protected against hackers

regularly backed up

You should also have an on-going log of how your website is built, so that it can be quickly repaired when things don’t quite go as expected.

You can ask me for help (if it’s the kind of basic stuff described here), dig around in the relevant pages of my DokuWiki for more clues, and in anycase, begin gathering your content, and prepare to publish! Even if only a few key people read what you post, that’s enough to make it a lot of fun. Good luck!